Unstructured Finance

Liz Claiborne is pulling its namesake brand’s wholesale business from Germany, Sweden and Russia, the company said on Friday. The decision affects only the Liz Claiborne brand, which it had just begun to roll out in those markets, a company spokesperson told Reuters in an e-mailed statement.

Producer and director Aaron Woolf’s new film “King Corn” has provoked a rich debate among moviegoers about the wisdom of U.S. farm subsidies, but taking on big corn was so difficult it has left him poor.

“While we were not pleased with these results, much of the commentary in the media and on Wall Street following the results ignores the strength of our company and the progress that we have made,” Lampert said.

The company said its focus on fashion for more affluent customers helped boost revenue.

And speaking of affluent, Tiffany came in this morning with an 18 percent sales jump, helped by growth in most markets, even Japan, which had seen declining sales. Earnings also jumped, but largely on the gain from the sale of the jeweler’s flagship store in Japan.

An higher-end customer base seems to be working for the companies as a way to avoid the woes plaguing other retailers.

Tiffany is so far pleased with sales in the all-important November-December holiday season, though the vast majority of the holiday business is yet to come.

On the other end of the spending spectrum, Big Lots said it now expects same-store sales to fall in the holiday quarter. The close-out retailer had previously forecast a 1 percent to 3 percent increase.

What is $5 billion to Sprint? The number-three U.S. mobile network turned down a cash-infusion offer from South Korea’s SK Telecom and Providence Equity, which reportedly included former Chairman Tim Donahue coming in as CEO as part of the package. Stanford Group analyst Michael Nelson says Sprint has major problems, but liquidity is not one of them. The New York Times has a copy of the letter sent to Sprint detailing the offer:

Who pays when a deal goes sour isn’t an easy subject to resolve. Over the past few years, as these figures from Factset MergerMetrics show, its been a one-way trend for leveraged buyouts – the private equity firm foots the bill.

As this female reporter and avid shopper knows well, women are “happy to meander through sprawling clothing and accessory collections or detour through the shoe department,” according to the survey.

Men, on the other hand, are not as fun: “Men want to go to Sears, buy a specific tool and get out,” said Robert Price, a member of the advisory board of Wharton’s Jay H. Baker Retail Initiative.

The study, in conjunction with Toronto consulting firm the Verde Group, found that men’s interest in shopping has atrophied after years of being taken care of by women. And they seem to be annoyed more by parking. The top problem that rankled men, according to the survey, is “difficulty in finding parking close to the store’s entrance.”

Women, on the other hand, who represent 83 percent of U.S. consumer spending, are put off when they can’t find help in stores when needed, and value personal interaction with store employees more than men. And if staff make women shoppers feel important, so much the better, the survey found.

But ultimately, shopping strategies for men and women harken back to the cave.

“Women are gatherers. Men are hunters,” said Delia Passi of WomenCertified, a retail training organization that also worked on the study. “Women walk into a store and scan. Men look for a specific aisle.”